As everyone around the world knows, the 2008 U.S. Presidental election is over and Barack Obama will take office as the President of the United States in January 2009.

Just as many world leaders did, the Prime Minister of Japan offered his congratulations to Obama:

I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to Senator Obama on his election as president of the United States of America.

Working together with President-elect Obama, I will strive to further strengthen the Japan-U.S. alliance and to resolve various challenges the international community faces when addressing issues such as the international economy, terrorism and the environment…

内閣総理大臣麻生太郎 (Tarou Asou, Prime Minister of Japan)

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Also, as I said in this post, the Japanese city of 小浜 (Obama) has supported Barack Obama ever since he became a candidate for the U.S. presidency. They sent him gifts (and they received a reply letter from his office with a couple words written in 日本語 (Japanese)).

The city of Obama has “Obama hula dancers” and souvenirs with Barack Obama’s image on them.

They’re considering making Barack Obama an honorary citizen of the town.

Of course, the reason for all of this is because Obama is a small town in western Japan that was losing money and the town’s mayor saw an opportunity to attract tourists…and it’s working. Suddenly the town is getting many visitors…some of them from overseas.

The tourism campaign is called “Obama For Obama“.

The mayor anticipates the town of Obama will become a world-famous vacation destination now that Barack Obama won the election.

The “Obama Hula Dancers” hope to perform at Barack Obama’s inauguration in January, by the way.

Obama is the name of the city and is written 小浜. (It translates to “small beach“).

This small town in central Japan has decided to unofficially support the U.S. Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama because of the similarities in names. (The names are written the same way in the English alphabet only. In Japanese, the city in Japan is written 「小浜」 but Barack Obama’s name is written as 「オバマ」).

Ironically, near the town of 小浜 (Obama) in 福井県 (Fukui Prefecture) is Masunaga Optical company.
This is the company that made the eyeglasses that U.S. Republican Vice Presidental candidate Sarah Palin wears.

The president of Masunaga Optical said that he’s now in a bind because he had been unoffically supporting Barack Obama with the rest of his town…until the nomination of Sarah Palin, who wears his company’s eyeglasses.

Anyways, it’s not as if anyone is the town of 小浜 (Obama) can vote in the U.S. elections.
It’s all just in fun because of the coincidental similar names.